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Friday, October 14, 2011

From Greenpoint to the Green Mountains with Mushroom & Sauerkraut Pierogis

Pierogis and onions at the end of a damp travel day

It was quite the trek up to Vermont today. What we thought
was going to be an early start to a lightly trafficked route Northbound turned
out to be an eye-squinting and nerve-racking 40 mile-per-hour crawl through
heavy downpours.

We could hardly see and had to stop twice

Finally, almost home and it's clearing a bit

This is Misty’s first trip to “grammy and grampy’s” house.
She has gone from nervous and shaking in the car to excited, since we usually
take a quick trip to my in-laws in Queens, or to the dog park, for safely-fenced
running fits. For her, car equals fun. Although this trip was closer to 6
hours, she handled it quite well. For the first 4 hours she sat daintily and
watched the passing cars, trees and pounding rain. As usual, Amit
channel-surfed through techno and hip-hop on the XM, and we all three enjoyed
the excessive bass of our rental Caddy’s system.

Up on the mountain, the rain was not quite so hard, and
there were some times it lightened. In either case, we were determined to
persuade Misty to do her business before going in the house, to avoid her
typical new-place anxiety pees. But she just wanted to run. And run, and run.
She ran in circles, after Frisbees, chasing balls, tearing around trees and
across the neighbor’s lawn. I’ve never seen her run so much – and I don’t think
she’s ever had such a big expanse of grassy space to try it. We were nervous to
let her off-leash for the first time without a fence, but she was happy to let
us know her excitement and kept running back to us, as if to say “I love it
here!”

At the end of the day we were all tired. Misty ran her
energy out, drank plenty of fresh rainwater, sampled some cat food and did her
business in the appropriate spot of her choosing. Amit and I were just feeling
sleepy from the drive, the clouds and a bit damp from walking around in the
rain so long.

This was a night for which pierogis were the perfect hearty
dinner.

Steaming bowl full of Mushroom and Sauerkraut Pierogis

I had bought and frozen a couple packages from the
supermarket in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that our Polish neighbor had taken us
to.He was on a mission for
special ketchup, but they had all sorts of Polish goodies. You can buy these
packages of prepared pierogis in most grocery stores in New York in the dairy
section, but this one in the predominantly Polish ‘hood had more to choose
from, and at much lower prices. I’ve
never had sauerkraut & mushroom pierogis, so I was excited to try them.
They happen to be vegan too – no eggs or cheese in this kind, and not at all
needed!a

Crunchy kraut and yummy mushrooms made these my new favorite pierogis.

We always need vegetarian inspiration at my parent’s house,
so I decided to schlep some ready-to-rot kale, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes
along with the frozen pierogis.I
quickly boiled-up the filled pasta-pillows after my nap and topped them with
some sautéed onions. My mom made for us some delicious local sweet corn – the last
of the season from a nearby farm.

It's so quiet up here. Even the normally anxious Mistinator has no worries. About an hour and a piece of homemade fudge later, everyone is starting to nod off, full and satisfied.